We swap growth and prosperity for recession and hard times. But we keep geopolitical independence.
The alternative is to go along with the Russians until the next time, when the next time will be far too late.
Germany gets a lot of flak for buying Russian gas cheaply the last 30 years in ever increasing volumes. But it seems strange to argue that Germany just should have bought gas from Qatar or the US for double the price from the start.
How should Germany have done that? Import tax on Russian gas? Laws preventing importing cheap gas from the east? Sounds a bit aggressive towards our big neighbor to the east.
No, I think the article is just plain wrong. Europe benefitted from cheap gas over the last decades and it will be somewhat affected by higher prices for this and next year, but it will accelerate the transition to renewables and strengthen nuclear in those countries in Europe where it is still an option. In the end it push Europe in the right direction.
This is what people miss. What is the opportunity cost of over-paying for gas for 30 years? By not over-paying, Germany was able to invest in its own economy, and it is now in a position to help Ukraine and complete its transition to renewables.
Germany's strategy is currently unpopular because the costs all happen at once, whereas people generally put up with small costs spread over a long time, but it would have been foolish to harm German economic growth while Putin could just sell his gas somewhere else and grow the Russian economy at a faster rate than Germany's.
You can't really say what would have happened, but if nobody purchased that cheap gas, I think it's safe to say the Russia of today would look very different, with that being a rather large part of the country's total exports.
Everything on top would help reduce heating use of gas.
The major issue is that until then we are back to burning coal which is cheap but environmentally much worse than gas.
Last, your point on a negotiating end of the war is weird. Russia blew up their own pipelines. We are never going back to Russian gas in Germany in the near future. This war will be won on the battle field.
https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/eu-kommission-befuerchtet-...
I see a lot of posts written from point-of-views that can only be described as outlandish, as they do not reflect the grim reality. I'd be surprised if full-scale riots in every major Northern European city are not the order of the day in a couple of months, never mind years.
The alternative to to not provoke a conflict when you are not ready.
ie invest in alternatives - so you aren't on the hook down the line, but don't provoke a conflict when you are on the hook.
Russia has the economy about the size of Italy - and as you can see by the progress in Ukraine, it's not going to be able to sweep across Europe anytime soon.
There is no existential threat - apart from the one we have just created by timing the conflict when we are not ready.
Well, they have the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world...
I'm a lot less worried now.
is that really the fact?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/02/us-russia-puti...
how about this?
Putin tried for months to secure Ukraine and is being pushed back. He's instituted a draft to replace lost personnel there, and over a hundred thousand able-bodied Russians have fled the country rather than take the risk that they're called up.
I wouldn't put the odds at zero (because Putin is also not the most stable and sensible person), but it seems very unlikely that he would even try to send troops to open up a completely new front, against actual NATO members, let alone succeed in any meaningful way.
Also we're soon going to be a part of NATO along with Finland. The Baltic will be a NATO lake.
Arguably we're already past that. This is what too late looks like.
Apparently I can't read.
> The alternative is to go along with the Russians until the next time, when the next time will be far too late.
Sorry, but that didn't read as sarcasm to me?
Or, unless the "swapping growth and prosperity" is in reference to Brexit and is not a reference to supporting Ukraine, or is a reference to short lived gains by depending on Russian energy sources.
„You can have all the independence you want, as long as it exactly aligns with the US state department.“
The value of the Euro disagrees.
The US has long enough told the EU, specifically Germany, to ditch Russian gas and direct 2% of their GDP towards their militaries/NATO. Did Merkel listen? No. Only Poland and to some extent Romania listened. France already had the most capable military in the EU.
That's kind of like telling the US to ditch China for manufacturing. It would make sense, it's just easier said than done. The issue is that it seems that Europe lacks gas reserves, Russia was a convenient and reliable source and it would have made no economic sense to diversify the same way it makes no economic sense for the US to bring back manufacturing from China.
> France already had the most capable military in the EU.
The answer to that is World War 2, the Germans were reluctant to militarise, for a while they were outright forbidden to.